AI helps me code faster, but not always understand better

Bohdan Chuprynka — Sun, 05 Apr 2026 20:39:44 +0000

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately.

AI coding tools are obviously useful. They help you move faster, get unstuck, write boilerplate, debug, and try things quickly.

But I keep noticing the same tension:

Sometimes AI helps you finish something without helping you really understand it.

The code works.
The task is done.
But your confidence in the code is not always there.

I think that matters a lot, especially for:
people learning to code

That’s the reason I’ve been exploring an idea for a tool that feels more like a mentor inside the editor, not just something that generates code.

Something that helps you:

I’m trying to figure out whether this is a real problem other people feel too, or if it’s just something I’ve personally noticed.

So I made a very short survey for anyone who has used AI for coding, debugging, or learning programming.

It’s just 4 questions and takes about 1 minute:

If you’ve used AI for coding even once, I’d really value your input.

Also curious what people here think:

Has AI made you better at coding, or mostly just faster?

DEV Community: Bohdan Chuprynka